Personality Type
According to Meyers-Briggs Personality Type tests, I am an ENFP (extrovert, intuitive, feeler, perceiver) and my husband is an ISTJ (introvert, sensor, thinker, judger). If you are unfamiliar with personality type, this means we are opposites in every sub-category. As you can imagine, this has caused a lot of friction in our marriage. We both tend to feel that the other's way of doing things is fundamentally "wrong". I think if one of us had a diagnosis of a disorder, like Asperger's, it would be very easy to blame the friction we experience on the disorder rather than trying to genuinely understand and accept that we are simply wired differently and what works for me does not work for him and vice versa.
Working to understand the differences between myself and my husband has helped me enormously in trying to understand some of the "difficult" traits of my kids as simply differences and not a defect per se. I routinely recommend that other parents learn a little bit about personality type as it relates to their family members. I think that is especially important when one family member fits the profile for Asperger's because it can help empower family members to resolve problem issues without pathologizing every "difficult" thing the person does.
For information on personality type, check out The Upside-Down School Room's Learning Styles Page. You can scroll to the bottom of the page or click on "Meyers-Briggs" in the page navigation menu to jump to that section.
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Asperger's Syndrome: A Working Hypothesis
- Giftedness
- Personality Type
- Sensory Issues
- Compounding (Biomedical) Factors
- Eccentric Geniuses
- The Big Disconnect
- Socially Deaf
- Time Blind
- Rapid Brain Growth and Vitamin Deficiencies
- Different Minds
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